Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-06-07

would 90 to the parior and ring for him
and when we were alone | would ask him
about her. Yes, that was best.
Great God! l stood transfxed upon
the threshold. There, there at the win
dow she was sitting.
"Miss Fannie
"WhY, Lieutenant" She was coming
towards me with that same old smile and
her hand extended to greet me. Thank
heaven she lived.
| stammered s0mething-not the pretty
speech had arranged. l thought the
color came into her face DIT as her eyes
rested on my bOutonniere. Perhaps was
mistaken. Then she turned to q gentle
man in the room:
"Henry, this is Lieutenant Howard, of
whom you have heard me speak. My hus-
band, Lieutenant, Mr. Chambers. We saw
you were coming, Lieutenant, by the
Army and Navy Journal"
"Ah! indeed. l didn't know that it
anticipated events"
The rest was small talk. Did remem-
Der her drive over Mr.. Sheridsn's ride?
The picnic at such a pace? The dance at
another?
And her Henry took hand. Wouldn't
l take drive with him the next day and
see the Improvements IN the place?
eyes, would"
l answered SO because of the hope that
she would be of the party. That hope l
think buoyed me up through the sleepless
nigat. The morning came, and with it
Henry. No one could have been more
attentive, more polite, but it was the re-
fnement of torture to he bored by him,
and he showing the courtesy because of
my past regard for her.
That smoke-stack in the distance, he
explained as we drove towards the city
from the fort, was at the coal shaft.
Leavenworth, it had been found, was
about one of the most productive coal
fields in the country. Fuel at cents per
bushel was furnished the year round to
families and factories. Three mines were
running, and al railroads in the state
were getting their supply there. The de-
velopment OF this coal supply alone
would soon give employment to twenty
five thousand men.
1t was ali one to me. The place where
the coal shaft was mad value in my eyes,
because it was upon the river bank where
we had once gone rowing, his wife and
l, but l would not tell him that.
Seven lines of railroad, Henry said, al
ready were required to do the carrying
business OF the booming city, apd two
new ones were building BOW as rapidly
as money and man could construct them.
All the leading roads of the west, ne
said, were buying coal lands in and about
the town on which to locate shops, ami
the moneyed men of Kansas City were
securing sites along the river side for
suburban homes. The twin cities were
but twenty miles apart.
And so he ratified on. There were dftV
manufacturing establishments already in
the city. In one of them the colossal
pumps that gave the city water had been
made. And see those beds of stone. What
inexhaustible supplies of building mate
rial were there, and with ii all, the prop
erty, the real estate, was held at less than
one-fourth the money asked by smaller
towns in the state, with no such stable
foundation for permanent expectation. 3
Dear me, dear me! and l WAS dying for
some word of her. Why did he not,tell
me of his wife? Or, better yet, why did
he not remain quiet that might think Of
her? Through one little rift IN bis cons
mercial talk l injected depressing ques-